John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

Hopes, Dreams, & Expectations (Published 1/4/2011)

Q:

Kendal, a Tributes.com visitor from TX writes: “I lost my 3 year old son almost 6 months ago now to a condition that he was born with. Doctors told me that it would happen, but he fought his way back from multiple hospitalizations and complications, I just knew he would be with me forever. I haven’t accepted it, and I desperately need to know how to live again?”

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Kendal,

As I’m sure you realize, in addition to the pure, raw grief of missing your son, his death ended of the hopes, dreams, and expectations about his future and your life with him that make it feel nearly impossible to accept and move forward with your life.

So I won’t offer up any comments that might push you further away rather than help you be able to participate in life again.

The only way we know to help restore people’s willingness and ability to begin to “live again,” is to help them discover and complete everything they wish had been “different, better, or more” and all the unrealized “hopes, dreams, and expectations about his future.”

In order to become as emotionally complete as you can with your son, you need to take the actions that lead to emotional completion. Those actions are detailed in The Grief Recovery Handbook [available in most libraries and bookstores].

Of course doing the work cannot bring your son back, but it can help you get your heart back and with it the will and drive to get back into life. Doing the work will not remove any fond memories you have of your son and the relationship you had with him.

As you do the work in the Handbook, please feel free to contact me by phone or email and I will give you some additional guidance, if needed.